Faith and Animal Agriculture

When your eating that tender steak or delicious burger, do you ever wonder if you are committing a sin? Usually when I am eating a steak, that thought doesn't even come to mind and I am pretty sure that doesn't come to mind of most individuals that are involved in the agriculture industry. However, animal right's activists are trying to instill this thought in consumers minds, making them think twice about what they are eating.

A couple days ago I read an article in the Drovers Cattle Network that said animal rights activists are starting to change their tune a bit and are starting to use faith as a way to push their anti-meat/anti-animal agriculture agenda. However, this wasn't the first time I heard about faith being used to convince consumers that eating meat is unethical. When I was down at the 2012 Commodity Classic,  I attended a learning session that also pointed out that these activists are starting to use faith as a way to convince people to stop eating meat. In their view, they see eating a steak or pork chop as committing a sin. They think that God did not put animals on this earth for our consumption and that God gave us plants to consume instead. Yet, one of the scriptures in Genesis suggest otherwise. "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything." Genesis 9:3. This was when the Lord spoke to Noah after the great flood. So my question to the individuals that claim producing and eating meat is ungodly is why would the Lord tell Noah that everything on the earth that moves is food but in today's world it is wrong and unethical? It doesn't make much sense to me and the message about everything being food doesn't change throughout the bible.

However, not everyone realizes that eating meat is NOT a sin, and this is why it is important for the agriculture community to make sure that anti-animal agriculture groups don't start misusing faith as a way to further their anti-meat agenda. Over 78% of the nation's population belongs to the christian faith, so just imagine what could happen if these anti-animal agriculture groups started to convince Christians that eating meat was bad and against the Christian faith.

Those of us in the agriculture industry need to make sure that these groups against animal agriculture don't take advantage of faith and use it to further their agenda. I want to leave you with a passage that I found that I think makes a good point. We shouldn't judge those who don't eat meat and those that don't eat meat shouldn't judge us. The only one that has the authority to judge is our Lord.

"One person believes he can eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgement on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him." Romans 14:2-3